Nobody knew exactly when or where it would fall, just that it was headed to Earth.
Now, China’s first space station, Tiangong-1, has re-entered the atmosphere after it captured the attention of scientists and space enthusiasts around the world.
“Tiangong-1 is China’s first space station,” explained Phil Larson, Assistant Dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science at CU Boulder. “It was launched in 2011 and it had human crews visit it over its lifespan.”
Larson, like many others, followed the space stations progress toward Earth both online and through social media. Tiangong-1 re-entered the atmosphere Sunday evening, Pacific Time, over the southern Pacific Ocean.
“This isn’t the first time a space station has come back, but it doesn’t happen every day,” Larson said.
Tiangong-1 returned to Earth uncontrolled. China lost contact with the station in 2016, so the exact position was unknown.
“It’s not like, spinning out of control,” Larson explained. “It’s just not able to be controlled by the ground. There’s no communications."
Scientists believed the space station would burn up as it re-entered the atmosphere, and pose little to no risk to the public.
Still, it captured the world’s attention. The state of Michigan even activated its emergency operations center to monitor the event.
And people across the globe followed the progress of Tiangong-1 back to Earth.
“You can literally track a… space station coming back from space on your phone and talk about it with people round the world,” Larson said. “And that, I think, is exciting.”
